August 19, 2024
We see many people with back pain in our Midland, Odessa office, and Permian Basin Accident & Injury Centers has been able to help many of them find relief with chiropractic care. However, recovering from back pain doesn't necessarily mean having to make a choice between chiropractic care and medical therapy, as many individuals utilize both types of care with great success.
In a report published by the academic journal Spine researchers1 looked at a group of active-duty military personnel between the ages of 18 and 35 who reported both acute pain and restricted function due to back symptoms. Some of the patients engaged in treatment via standard medical care, while the rest were given chiropractic adjustments as well as regular medical care, as the authors wanted to see which group fared better.
Researchers observed that the group that got standard medical care along with chiropractic scored "significantly better" than the patients who received medical care alone; 73% reported positive benefits compared to just 17 percent of the medical care only group who reported the same amount of improvement. This was true regarding both pain and level of function at the two- and four-week marks.
Accordingly, integrating these two forms of treatment can greatly benefit you--the patient--offering advantages when compared to medical care alone. However, while chiropractic and medicine can work alongside each other, chiropractic offers some distinct strengths over medical treatment.
Although it may seem as if each approach plays a 50/50 role, there is one major benefit that chiropractic care has over medical care and that is in patient satisfaction. In fact, a study from UCLA2 that was printed in the American Journal of Public Health reports that, on average, chiropractic patients are generally more satisfied with their recovery than people undergoing medical treatment.
According to the researchers, the main factors that patients liked over medical treatment were "self-care advice and explanation of treatment." This isn't surprising, as chiropractors tend to spend much more time advising their patients as to how they can better their health on their own, as well as outlining more thoroughly what to expect from chiropractic care.
Without a doubt, the strategies associated with chiropractic are very different than those offered with medical therapy, but a large amount of the difference is the fact that chiropractic is a natural approach to health and well-being. In contrast to focusing on just relieving the symptoms, chiropractic care involves finding the root cause of your pain, which often results in greater improvement as you are tackling the problem at its source.
Furthermore, while medication is sometimes helpful for managing certain conditions, many health issues respond well to a natural approach like chiropractic care. This means fewer negative responses to prescriptions and longer-lasting recovery.
You don't have to endure back pain or other health issues. Give our Midland, Odessa office a call today at (432) 262-3219. We'll do our best to help you get and stay free from back pain.
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